large to entitle him to a premium. It will be not fail to observe that amateur, and not practical seen that for his butter, which is certified by com- farmers, generally bear off the prizes, to the dispetent judges to have been of the finest quality, appointment and often permanent disgust of less he received only thirty cents per pound, although favored competitors. These gentlemen amateurs prepared in the best manner, and laboriously would add greatly to the obligations they have alstamped. This should not be so. Many con- ready laid the community under, if they would ensumers in Boston pay from forty to fifty cents a ter their fine stock for exhibition only, and leave pound, besides in some instances paying expenses the prizes to parties to whom they are a pecuniary by express from Philadelphia for butter, no better, object as well as a proper ambition. to say the least, than his. If he, or others who The committee have observed with great pleas feel a just pride in producing the best butter, ure the successful efforts of many gentlemen in the would also take a little pains in marketing it, county to introduce the best foreign stock to their they would be more justly paid for their exertions. neighbors and the public. Already the effect is His cows are all described as natives. We sug- obvious to the observer when passing over the gest to him to add one Alderney to his herd. county in any direction. Fine cattle of the JerHer cream will give color and character to his sey, Ayrshire, Devon and Durham breeds are oftbutter, and enable him to advance his prices en seen mingled with the best native stock. Much from one-third to a half in a market where it of this improvement is also to be attributed to the would be appreciated, and where there is a de- "Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculmand far exceeding the present supply. Mr. ture," which has with well considered liberality Viles, of Waltham, exhibited a dairy of eight placed bulls of various breeds in different parts of cows, partly natives and partly grades of Ayr- the Commonwealth, for public use. shire. His account of their produce, which is extraordinary, is submitted. The dairies of Mr. John B. Moore, and of Mr. George M. Barrett, of Concord, were of a high order, showing well selected stock and great production of milk. And here we may be allowed to express some doubts whether the statements of extraordinary produce of cows, as given by amateurs in the public prints, and which sometimes find their way into agricultural reports, have not done something to discourage the efforts they are intended to stimulate. In a late number of the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, there is a communication from Col. Le Couteur, of Jersey, giving the produce of his celebrated prize cow "Beauty," and of several others, of the best specimens of the Jersey or Alderney cows. says that "Beauty," in her best milk, yielded eleven pounds thirteen ounces of butter a week from one hundred and thirty-three quarts of milk (nineteen quarts a day,) being a pound to about eleven quarts. Some of the other cows gave twenty-six quarts of milk a day for a short period, and fourteen pounds of butter a week, or a pound to thirteen quarts of milk. He This contrasts strangely with the frequent statements made of the products of the same breed For the Committee, JAMES BROWN, Chairman. HONOR TO THE TOILING HAND. Then honor-honor to the toiling hand! It breaks the stubborn sword; It rings the forge-the shuttle throws- It conquers clime-it stems the wave- Then honor-honor to the toiling hand! For the New England Farmer. THE CONCORD GRAPE. This grape, which has created a great sensation of animals here. From four to six quarts of among the horticulturists, but which I have never milk, it is often said, give a pound of butter. tasted, (and perhaps may not for years,) must be And these statements come from parties whose a good fruit; but whether so desirable as claimed, accuracy and truthfulness no one can for a moment years only can decide. Should all the horticuldoubt. But what are the circumstances? Is this tural papers in New England extol it, its reputaextraordinary amount of butter made soon after tion would not be decided. From ten to fifteen the dropping of the calf and on good pasturage years' cultivation can only put the matter at only? Or is it made from farrow cows, or the rest. Though the Isabella may have faults, it strippings or morning messes? and are the cows cannot be easily supplanted or rivalled among highly fed with stimulating food? No doubt the mass of fruit-growers. How long would it these statements, made sometimes without all the take to establish the fact that we had an apple details necessary to make them well understood, that would equal the Rhode Island Greening, the have had a serious effect on the competition for Baldwin or the Russet, or a pear that would rival our prizes. Would it not be well to make it a the Bartlett? condition that cows offered for premium shall in The Isabella grape is handsome and good, but the trial months, say from May to September, there are many locations in which it will not have no other feed than pasturage and green fod-ripen. A neighbor of mine, whose soil is eleder? Without such a general rule, it is to be vated and who has a vine sheltered on the south feared that there can be but little fair competition, side of his house, has seen his grapes fail only and that many people will decline it altogether for once in the past six years-the frost then blightwhose advantage it is equally proposed. In this ing them when they were of a light cinnamon department, as well as others, careful readers can- color. A western sun upon this vine, I think, would make it more certain, though not bad as it cheap, healthy, nutritious food. It costs only half is. But there are many locations, where a per- the price per pound of flour, and contains no son happens to have a garden, in which this moisture, while the best of flour holds from twelve grape would not ripen more than half the seasons, to sixteen pounds of water in a barrel. Cracked and some where it would never fully mature. wheat is excellent for sedentary persons. That If Mr. Bull has introduced a grape that is as and Graham flour should be used in preference, good and as handsome as the Isabella, and surer at the same price per pound, to white flour, beto ripen, he merits the thanks of lovers of this cause more healthy and more nutritious. One fruit, and should have a good profit on his vines. hundred pounds of Graham flour is worth twice At present I have not one of them; but to see as much in a family as one hundred and thirtyone growing in a place already prepared in my garden, is a "consummation devoutly to be wished." W. Medford. .D. W. L. WHAT SHALL WE EAT? three pounds of superfine white flour. Corn meal costs less than half the price of flour. It is worth twice as much. It is not so economical in summer, because it makes so much fire to cook it. The first great error in corn-meal is in grinding it too much, and next in not cooking it enough. Corn-meal mush should boil two hours; it is betWith one of the hardest winters for the poor ter if boiled four, and not fit to cut if boiled less that has stared them in the face for many years, than one hour. Buckwheat flour should never and now with this cold month of December upon be purchased by a family who are obliged to econthem in all its rigor, it behooves them to look omize food. It is dear at any price. It must be about for something to eat less costly than roast floated in dear butter to be eaten, and then it is beef and plum puddings; for the two dollars a not healthy. Oat-meat is as good in cakes as day, that some of them seem to think would en- buckwheat, and far more nutritious. But it is dure forever, has been cut off suddenly. It is es- more nutritious, and is particularly healthy for timated that fifty thousand persons have been children, in the form of porridge. thrown out of employment, since the cold weath- The cheapest food is white beans. They are er commenced, by that cause alone. An equal worth from $1,50 to $2 a bushel, and retail for number have been thrown out by failures and 8 cents a quart. Prof. Liebig has stated that pork general stagnation of business. It is to be a win- and beans form a compound of substances pecuter of suffering to those who are dependers upon liarly adapted to furnish all that is necessary to the labor of their hands for daily bread for them- support life and give bone, muscle and fat, in proselves and families. Whatever will tend, not to per proportions, to a man. This food will enable cheapen food, for that we cannot hope for, but to one to perform more labor, at less cost, than any show them what to eat, less expensive than their other substance. A quart of beans, 8 cents, half accustomed diet, should be at once adopted. For a pound of pork, 6 cents, will feed a large family this purpose we offer a few suggestions: for a day, with good strengthening food. And Fresh meat of all kinds, at the prices at which who that can raise a reminiscence of old times butchers retail it, is not economical food. Meats in New England, but will remember that glorious will average over a shilling a pound. Salted old-fashioned dish called "bean porridge?" We meats are cheaper than fresh. În economizing should call it bean soup now. Four quarts of food, meat should be fried or boiled. If you beans and two pounds of corned beef would give would get the most substance out of fresh meat, a good meal to fifty men-one cent a meal. make it into soup, or stew, or pot-pie. In mak- Potatoes should be utterly abandoned by the ing soup, soak your meat some hours in cold wa- poor this winter. They cannot afford to eat them. ter, and boil it in the same. Thicken with beans, Potatoes are selling at four dollars a barrel. That peas, rice, barley, hominy, or broken bread. The is $1,87 a bushel. At retail the poor pay $2,50 best meat is the most economical for soup. Do a bushel, or about five cents a pound, twice the not buy bones. price of corn meal; five-sixths as much as fine If you boil meat to eat, never put it in cold wa-flour; one-fifth more a bushel than beans, while ter. Let it be boiling when you put the meat in one bushel of the latter are worth for food as the pot. Do not buy fresh meat a pound or two much as a cart load of potatoes. All other vegeat a time. Buy a quarter or a half a sheep. You tables are still more uneconomical than potatoes. get it at half price. Beef or pork by the quarter Carrots are the cheapest of all roots. But they is a quarter cheaper. are but little used as human food, though very nuDo not buy your bread ready baked. It is six-tritious. They are partially used in soup. They pence a pound. Dry flour is the same. Home- are good simple boiled and eaten with a little butmade bread is far more nutritious. Make use of ter, or meat gravy. They should always form an corn meal, oat meal, Graham flour, hominy, ingredient of soup. They are sold by the quantity and cracked wheat for bread, in preference to at 50 cents a bushel. Turnips are dear at any fine wheat flour, both for health and economy. price. There is more nutriment in a quart of carHere are the relative retail prices per pound of rots than in a bushel of turnips. They are 82 these articles: Wheat flour, 6c; Graham flour, per cent. water. Cabbage is nutritious, but very 6c; cracked wheat, 6c; corn meal, 2c; homi- expensive. Buy very little of it if your money is ny, 3c; oat meal, 44c. The latter is the most short. Dried sweet corn is an article that all nutritious breadstuff known. Look at the Scotch persons are fond of. It sells for $4 to $5 a bushel, with their oat meal porridge-as robust a set of which weighs 42 lbs., and would retail at about men as ever lived. 10c a pound. We don't know about the economy Hominy we have before given our opinion upon. of eating it, as compared with other breadstuffs, It is an article that no family, desirous of prac- but as compared with coarse vegetables, it is imticing economy, can do without. It is a very measurably cheaper. A pound of sweet corn In stock.. Total... It produced 268 dozen eggs.. Total..... Profit. .$54.50 $120 06 .48 76 ......5 00 ..113 00 $166 76 120 06 $46 79 cooked to be eaten with meat, is worth more than three pounds of extra meat. It is also very excellent and nutritious mixed in the bean soup. Another very excellent, nutritious, economical article of food is dried peas. They are generally a little more costly than beans, but some think further. they will go At any rate they are good for a change. It would be good for a change for those who are put to their wit's end to know how to get food enough to feed their families, if anyBesides this profit, it produced 61 fowls, weighIn other words, it gave thing that we have said shall put them in a way ing about 200 lbs. of changing some of their old habits, so as to buy 23 cents per pound for the privilege of being such articles as will satisfy hunger, while giving eaten. Was roast pig ever so gracious as this? them health and strength, for less than half the We have tried pork-growing for the same two money they are now expending, though living only years, and dealt as liberally by the sty as by the half comfortably.-N. Y. Tribune. poultry yard, but with a very different result. The account stands thus : Bought a pig May 13, 1850.. Total.. Deduct 8 loads of manure. .$4.80 .15 02 -$19.82 ....8 00 $11 82 He produced 206 lbs. of pork. Divide the cost by this, and it gives a little over five cents per pound, as the cost of production. POULTRY CHEAPER THAN PORK. MR. EDITOR:-Allow me to say a few words in your paper in behalf of that much neglected class of stock that are usually found upon a farmer's premises without "a location," if they have a name. They are not thought worth enough to have quarters of their own, and so shift for themselves upon the first fence, tree, or out-house that affords rest to their feet. Even in He must be a very skilful farmer who can prothese days of hen-fever, and of feathered stock imported from the farthest India and beyond, duce pork for four or five cents a pound. Most there are thousands of farmers who have no shel- of the pork made in New England costs six or ter for their fowls better than an apple-tree or seven cents, the full market price; so that there "The merciful man is merciful to is no advantage in producing it, except as it makes open shed. his beast; " and it would be a good lesson for the a valuable manure upon the farm. The farmer improvident owner of these abused bipeds, if he who can make pork for nothing, or what is could exchange places with them for one Decem- better, can make it pay him thrice the market ber night, when the thermometer stands below value for being eaten, is a man yet to be heard The best husbandry will probably never zero. The sty must have a place and the grunters from. be made comfortable, with a water-proof roof be able to accomplish this with any breed of pigs. But the fowls will pay their own way, with and a warm bed; for pork cannot be made to good advantage without proper attention. Pork- proper care, and will give you a certain amount growing is a main reliance to pay the rent of of poultry, without other cost than your own their hired hands. Poultry is more plague than trouble in rearing them. Each hen, well cared profit, and the less care bestowed upon them the for, will yield a clear profit of at least $1, or, better. We intercede for the "biddies," and other words, will give you eight pounds of poulbeg for them a little of the attention that is lav- try for nothing. in ished upon their more gross and less attractive We say, then, especially to the boys, take care neighbors. Give them a fair trial, and they will of the "biddies." "Let them have a warm place pay any farmer for his care much better than for a roost, a dry cellar, if possible, in winter, a pigs, and will supply his table with greater lux-variety of grain and a little animal food, clean And to establish water to drink, and lime in some shape for egguries, and at a cheaper rate. this position, we will tell you a tale quite as shells. Take care of the fowls, and they will literally as some others founded on fact. THE PRACTICAL FARMER. Vincennes, Indiana, the yard paid three cents a pound for all the S. BURNETT, Editor. Harvey, Mason, & Co., Pubpoultry used in the family. When did a porker lishers.—It gives evidence of plenty of mind, but ever pay you for the privilege of eating him? wants more ink. Our copy was all " "friars." Even Charles Lamb's roast pig will have to knock We cordially grasp your extended hand, brother under to the biddies. Practical. In 1851 my yard cost me "HOME SICK FOR THE COUNTRY." Since the Almighty placed our first parents in the garden of Eden, a passion and love for the country has been natural to the heart of man. A correspondent of the Knickerbocker gives vent to this feeling as follows: be adapted to convert all the noxious matter of the country into solid portable manure, without any offensive odor, instead of being carried into streams and rivers, vitiating the water we drink by polluting it with animal and vegetable matter "For my part, I am weary of city life, and sigh for the Great again, by evaporation, impregnating the very atMother. I see the waving of trees, but they are rooted in a mosphere we breathe and producing an actual loss church-yard, or grow between flag-stones. I hear the notes of of the most valuable materials to the agriculture singing birds, but they are pewter canaries at sixpence apiece. I am tired of water running up and down leaden pipes, and through cocks and filters; I want to see it rise like a Naiad, dripping from the well. I am haunted of stoops, and have a sort of green sickness for porches clambered over with greenery. I wish for other flowers than artificial, and desire to look upon rain not as an inconvenience, but as a blessing to the crops. "I'd kind o' like to have a cot Fixed on some sunny slope; a spot Five acres, more or less, With maples, cedars, cherry trees, To have the porch with vines o'erhung, And round my lattice window spread "To solace mine and me, I kind o' think I should desire To hear around the lawns, a choir Of wood-birds singing sweet; And in a dell I'd have a brook, Far from the city's crowds and noise ; And if kind Heaven should bless my store, How happy I should be!" PULVERISED PEAT. of the United Kingdom, which, if taken in the aggregate from all available resources, can scarcely be estimated at less than 10,000,0007, sterling, annually. Further details cannot now be entered upon, but it may be remarked:-let every cottage be possessed of this cheap and valuable article, finely pulverised peat, and his garden may vie with the best in produce and verdure; he may thoroughly manure his own ground and have a large surplus to dispose of to his more wealthy neighbor. Let every small householder see to it, and produce a portable, inodorous, and valuable manure, saleable in every locality. From the palace to the hovel the same means are available, but where water closets, cess-pools, sewers, &c., have to be contended with, time will be required to effect the necessary changes; yet, in the nineteenth century, surely, our enlightened age, with these startling facts before us, will never long permit the foundation of such vast wealth to the country to be floating in the ocean. These remarks are only the outline of this important discovery.-Gardeners' Chronicle. VOYAGE AROUND A PUDDING. Dr. Bushwhacker folded his napkin, drew it through the silver ring, laid it on the table, folded his arms, and leaned back in his chair, by which we knew there was something at work in A most important discovery has been made by his knowledge-box. "My dear madam," said an eminent agricultural professor of chemistry, he, with an aboriginal shake of the head, "there that finely pulverised peat will effectually deodor- are a great many things to be said about that ise the most offensive putrid matter, and destroy pudding.' no. the most foetid odors; in fact, that it possesses Now, such a remark at a season of the year the wonderful disinfecting properties of charcoal, when eggs are five for a shilling, and not always that by mixing it with common night-soil in fresh at that, is enough to discomfort anybody. about equal proportions, one of the most valuable The doctor perceived it at once, and instantly manures is made, and proved by experiments not added, "In à geographical point of view, there inferior in results to the best South American gua- are many things to be said about that pudding. It may be made at all seasons and stored My dear madan," he continued, "take tapioca away for use, or the land dressed with it immedi- itself; what is it, and where does it come from?" ately. This valuable manure may be used as a Our eldest boy, just emerging from chickentop-dressing, or drilled, or dropped in with the hood, answered, "85 Chambers Street, two doors seed, at the rate of from 700 to 800 pounds per below the Irving House." acre, and it may be applied with benefit to every "True, my dear friend," responded the dockind of crop. It may be sown with the seeds of tor, with a friendly pat on the head; "true, but all green crops, and it will push them into early that is not what I mean. Where," he repeated, and rapid growth. It will also be found highly with a questioning look through his spectacles, serviceable in all garden crops, shrubs, and flower and a Bushwhackian nod, "does tapioca come beds. If the finely pulverised peat be strewn over the floors of stables, piggeries or cow houses, with a very light covering of straw over it, it will ab- "Yes, sir; from Rio de Janeiro in the southsorb and retain all moisture, disinfect the building ern, and Para in the northern part of the Braof every noxious gas so injurious to cattle, and by zils, do we get our tapioca; from the roots of a its mixture with the excreta from the animals, plant called the Mandioca, botanically the Jatfor immediate use. Sheep folded upon it at night|tropha Manihot, or, as they say, the Cassava. would produce wonderful and most important re- The roots are long and round, like a sweet_posults to farmers in the vast production of valuable tato; generally a foot or more in length. Evemanure. Finely pulverised peat also supplies ry joint of the plant will produce its roots like the ready means of removing all nuisances, there- the cuttings of a grape-vine. The tubers are by promoting the public health-and many years dug up from the ground, peeled, scraped, or gracannot elapse before this important discovery will ted, then put in long sacks of flexible ratan— from?" "Rio de Janeiro and Para!" ca. -from beneath the cliff 1 "Except the nutmeg, doctor." sacks, six feet long or more; and at the bottom and so ends his year's labor. That, sir, is the of the sack they suspend a large stone, by which history of the flavoring, and you will have to althe flexible sides are contracted, and then out low a stretch across the Caribbean, say twentypours the cassava-juice in a pan placed below to five hundred miles, for the vanilla.' receive it. This juice is poisonous, sir, highly "We are getting pretty well round, doctor." poisonous, and very volatile. Then, my dear "Then we have sauce here, wine-sauce-Tenmadam, it is incarcerated in water, and the resi-eriffe, I should say, by the flavor. duum, after the volatile part, the poison, is evaporated, is the innocuous farina, which looks like small crumbs of bread, and which we call tapioThe best kind of tapioca comes from Rio, which is, I believe, about five thousand five hun-We must take four thousand miles at least for dred miles from New York; so we must put the wine, my learned friend, and say nothing of down that as a little more than one-fifth of our the rest of the sauce." voyage around the pudding." This made our eldest open his "Eggs and milk," continued Dr. Bushwhacker, The nutmeg! To the Spice Islands in the In"are home productions; but sugar, refined su- dian Ocean we are indebted for our nutmegs. gar, is made partly of the moist and sweet yel- Our old original Knickerbockers, the web-footed low sugar of Louisiana, partly of the hard and Dutchmen, have the monopoly of this trade. dry sugar of the West Indies. I will not go into Every nutmeg has paid toll at the Hague before the process of refining sugar now, but I may ob- it yields its aroma to our graters. The Spice Isserve here, that the sugar we get from Louisiana, lands! The almost fabulous Moluccas, where if refined and made into a loaf, would be quite neither corn nor rice will grow; where the only soft, with large loose crystals; while the Havana quadrupeds they have are the odorous goats that sugar, subjected to the same treatment, would breathe the fragrant air, and the musky crockomake a white cone almost as compact and hard diles that bathe in the high-seasoned waters. The as granite. But we have made a trip to the An- Moluccas, tilles for our sugar, and so you may add fifteen hundred miles more for the saccharum." tor." eyes. -the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring This is getting to be a pretty large pudding, "That is equal to nearly one-third of the cir- There, sir! Milton, sir. From Ternate and Ticumference of the pudding we live upon, doc- dore, and the rest of that mavellous cluster of is"Vanilla," continued the doctor, "with which cloves. Add twelve thousand miles at least to lands, we get our nutmegs, our mace, and our this pudding is so delightfully flavored, is the the circumference of the pudding for the nutbean of a vine that grows wild in the multitudinous forests of Venezuela, New Grenada, Guiana. meg. and, in fact, throughout South America. The doctor." long pod, which looks like the scabbard of a "Yes, sir. We have travelled already twentysword, suggested the name to the Spaniards; five thousand five hundred miles around it, and vayna meaning scabbard, from which comes the diminutive vanilla, or little scabbard-appropri- the way of Mexico, so that we can get a silver now let us re-circumnavigate and come back by ate enough, as every one will allow. These beans, which are worth here from six to twenty dollars spoon, and penetrate into the interior."-The Wine Press. a pound, could be as easily cultivated as hops in that climate; but the indolence of the people is CEMENTED CELLARS. so great, that not one Venezuelian has been found with sufficient enterprise to set out one Frequent inquiries are made on this subject. acre of vanilla, which would yield him a small Cellars plastered at the sides and on the bottom fortune every year. No, sir. The poor peons, or with hydraulic cement will keep out the water peasants, raise their garabanzas for daily use, but without a drain, and will exclude rats, provided beyond that they never look. They plant their the work has been done in the best manner. Imcrops in the footsteps of their ancestors, and, if perfectly executed, the water will leak in and it had not been for their ancestors, they would if the coat is too thin or too soft, rats will excaprobably have browsed on the wild grass of the vate beneath it, and then crack it off by pieceIlanos or plains. Ah! there are a great many meal. It is unnecessary to inform our readers such bobs hanging at the tail of some ancestral that the very best material is to be used; but kite, even in this great city, my dear, learned some are not enough aware of the importance of giving it sufficient thickness. On dry and hard "True, doctor, you are right, there." gravel, it may do well to apply the mortar at "Well, sir, the vanilla is gathered from the once to the excavated face of earth; but usually wild vines in the woods. Off goes the hidalgo, it is much better to cover the cellar bottom with proud of his noble ancestry, and toils home under paving stones, and where rather inclined to a back-load of the refuse beans from the trees, dampness, with two or three successive layers, after the red monkey has had his pick of the best. the last of which may be quite small, or even A few reals pay him for the day's work, and coarse gravel will do. The mortar, made rather then, hey for the cock-pit! There, Signor Ol-thin, is then spread smoothly over. In a few fogie meets the Marquis de Shinplaster, or the months the whole will assume a flinty hardness, Padre Corcorochi, and of course gets whistled out through which no rat, with all the cunning of a of his earnings with the first click of the gaffs, politician, can ever make his way. It will be as Then back he goes to his miserable hammock, dry as a floor, and fruit, vegetables, and other friend." |